GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5, 1 February 1906, Page 31

GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR

February 4, Sunday.— Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany. St. Andrew Corsini, Bishop and Confessor. „ 5, Monday.— St. Agatha, Virgin and Martyr. „ 6, Tuesday.— St. Hyacinth Mariscotti, "Virgin. „ 7, Wednesday.— St. 'Romuald, Abbot. „ 8, Thursday.— St. John of Matha, Confessor. „ 9, Friday. — St, Zosimus, Pope and Confessor. „ 10, Saturday.— St. Scholistica, Virgin. St. Andrew Corsini, Bishop and Confessor. St. Andrew belonged to a very illustrious family of Florence. In his boyhood he showed signs of a tendency to extravagance and vice, but the prayers and exhortations of his pious mother brought about his complete conversion. After having been for many years a member of the Carmelite Older, he was elected Bishop of Fiesole, a town near Florence. In this position he labored incessantly lor ele\en years, his only recreation being meditation on the truths of religion, and reading the Sacred Scriptures. He died in 1.373, at the age of 71. St. Agatha, Virgin and Martyr. St. Agatha belonged to a rich and illustrious Sicilian family. During the persecution of Decius, she displayed great constancy in suffering the bitter and protracted tortures which were inflicted on her by the orders of a pagan judge, and which eventually caused her death in 261. The city of Catania, situated at the foot of Mt. Etna, honors her as patron, and attributes to her protection its safety on the occasion of many violent volcanic eruptions. St. Hyacinth Mariscotti, Virgin. St. Hyacinth was a native of Italy. Though untarnished by any grievous fault, she was, in her youth, fond of worldly vanities, and gave but a half-hearted lesponse to the graces by which (!od called her to a more perfect life. Havins, embiacod the religious state, she atoned for the ease and hixuiy of her eaily life by the austerity of her later years She died in 1040, at the age of 55. St. Romuald, Abbot. St. Romuald was born at Ravenna about the year 956. From his youth he longed for a solitary life, that he might serve God with greater tranquihty, free from the tumult ol the world. At the age of twenty he became a member of a religious community near Ravenna, and afterwards founded a vei y strict Order of monks, called Camaldolose, from their most famous monastery. St. Romuald was over seventy years of age at the time of his death in 1027. St. John of Matha, Confessor. St. John was born in Piovence towards the middle of the twelfth century. Even in boyhood he was remarkable for the perfect manner 10 which he practised fraternal charily, his chief pleasuie being to assist the sick in a noighboiing hospital. In conjunction with' St. Felix of Valois, he founded the Order of Trinitarians for the lansoming ot Christians enslaved by the Moors. He died in Rome, A.D. 1213. St. Zosimus, Pope and Confessor. St. Zosimus, a native of Greece, succeeded Pope St. Innocent 1. in 417. He died after a pontificate of one year, marked by the framing of many wise disciplinary regulations, and by zealous effort to eradicate the Pelagian heresy. St. Scholastica, Virgin. St. Scholastica was a sister of St. Benedict, and, like him, she embraced the religious life at an early age. She was for several years Superioress of a community of nuns at a convent near to Monte Cassino, where her saintly brother was Abbot. St. Scholastica died about the year 543.